


13

by Enchantable



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Drama & Romance, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 05:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19144450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/pseuds/Enchantable
Summary: All specific post 1x13 one shots.





	1. Adopting a Beagle

**Author's Note:**

> Original Prompt:  
> heterosexual-who-loves-gays asked: Michael is late in the morning not because he's kissing Maria (🤮) but because he had seen a beagle and adopted her for Alex 😭

He waits for hours.

His mind goes through everything Michael could be doing. It’s a long list. Michael’s no saint and Alex knows word vomiting on him last night was not his greatest idea. Michael doesn’t do well with big gestures, he never has. He hates surprises and knowing what he knows, Alex gets it. He’s not a big fan of them either but God, he really wanted this to go well. Wanted things to be different. Instead he sits outside the trailer in a leather jacket he hasn’t worn ever and tries desperately not to feel like a chump.

Eventually he calls it.

There’s no point in being here.

Disappointment churns in his gut as he looks around at the discarded things Michael surrounds himself with. Why scrap metal has more of a place here than he does, he will never fully get. But apparently he is even a reject from the rejected pile. He goes to his car slowly because some part of him clings to the shred of hope, even as it slips through his fingers. He rests his hand against the door and looks in the reflect. Blowing out a breath, he lets his forehead rest on the glass so he doesn’t have to look.

“You’re an idiot,” he mutters to himself and unlocks the door.

“Wait! Wait I’m here, I’m here! Damn it would you stop! Alex!”

He turns as Michael comes flying towards him. He’s not just asking him to stop because racing around his feet is, of all things, a puppy. On a bright pink leash wearing a spiked collar that is slightly too big and actually bears a startling resemblance to one that Alex has in a box somewhere. He imagines Michael is upright purely because of his abilities. Even with them the unruly pair almost hit him. He actually has to brace himself against the car and winds up more or less just clutching Michael to him. Immediately he feels his legs get snapped together as the dog winds the leash around both of them.

“Sorry I’m late,” Michael says breathlessly.

“This is a new one, even for you,” he gets out.

Michael is there.

That’s the only thing that matters, even though his body heat and the leather jacket are not a good combo. Also they are tied together which Alex wouldn’t complain about, but he imagines with his prosthetic isn’t that comfortable. The dog’s lead runs out and she barks, whips around and starts untangling them. Only to re-tangle them in the opposite direction.

“I was, uh, getting stuff and they were having a puppy adopt-a-thon. And I remember what you said Mama DeLuca told you about the dog. And I saw this and—“ he trails off, embarrassed, “it seemed like you were meant to be.”

Alex looks back down and sees the puppy, for all her speed, is missing her leg. She seems unaware that anything is wrong with the situation and barks at the attention before going back to winding her leash around them. Alex looks at Michael again.

“Then I had to get her stuff. It took a while, you know how much they have in pet stores? It’s insane.”

He grins and Alex gives in because he can’t not kiss him. Despite their legs being wound together, Michael still grabs the back of his shirt to pull him closer and Alex cups his cheeks to steady him, because the dog is winding tighter circles. Michael tastes like coffee and the promise of something new. When they break apart, Alex sees his own hope reflected back at him.

“What’s her name?” He asks.

“I named her Linkin,” he says, beaming, “figured you could take a little of the emo phase wherever you went,” he adds, running his fingers down the lapels of Alex’s jacket, “but you beat me to it.

“You like this?” Alex asks. Michael nods, “good, because I’m dying.”

Michael laughs loudly and before Alex can shrug the jacket off, Michael thumbs the collar and tugs it down his arms. He raises his eyebrows at the long sleeved shirt Alex is wearing underneath.

“I told you, we’re gonna talk,” Alex says firmly.

“I brought you a puppy, you can’t cockblock me with a long sleeve shirt,” Michael protests. He looks down, “Linkin can you believe this?”

Linkin cocks her head to the side and does not bark. Alex bends down and picks her up and she immediately licks his face.

  
“You’re outnumbered, Guerin,” he says, “get used to it.”

Michael looks at them both and Alex has a feeling he’s got no problem with that.


	2. Zeroing In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: Alex zeroing in on Michael's hand when he finally comes back to the airstream.

“Your hand is fixed,” Alex blurts out before Michael can say anything.

Whatever reaction he’s expecting, the look on Michael’s face is not it. The fear, the guilt, everything gets so much worse. Michael’s said he has something he needs to tell Alex. Alex hopes it’s a fucking good explanation for his vanishing act. But he can’t see anything except the fact that Michael’s hands match. When he reaches out for it, Michael moves it away. Alex pulls his hands back. Touching Michael has always been a fluid thing. Sometimes it’s alright, sometimes it isn’t. This is the latter. Alex immediately steps back.

“You let Max heal it?” He says. Michael looks away, “that’s not the look I was expecting to see,” he admits. Since he found out, he’s wondered why Michael refuses to let his hand get healed. People noticing is, okay, he can understand that. But it still seems wrong. “Guerin?” He prods.

“I didn’t let him do anything, okay?” Michael says and the anger in his voice catches Alex off guard, “he grabbed my hand and he just did it.”

“What?” Alex stares. Michael has good days and bad days when it comes to touching him at all. Healing him is a whole other thing, “that’s not okay.”

“You think?” Michael continues, sarcasm and hurt dripping from his voice. He flexes his fingers and shakes his hand out, “I played the guitar.”

Alex tries to feel happy at the news but the only thing he wants to ask is where. His mind immediately jumps to the stage at the Wild Pony. Or maybe it’s just the fact that he can smell the rose oil on Michael’s shirt. He can fill in the pieces from there. Michael’s played the guitar for someone else. Been with someone else. Alex knows who and it’s hard to focus on anything but that. He can’t pretend it doesn’t sting. Actually no, stinging isn’t the right word for what he feels. Any evidence of them is gone from Michael and carved into the hollow space where his leg used to be. Maybe it’s what he deserves for being a coward for so long. Michael looks at him and can’t hold his gaze.

“He shouldn’t have done it without your permission,” Alex says, but his voice seems to be coming from very far away.

“Hey, full circle right?” Michael says, giving some razor sharp imitation of a smile.

“Guess you can move on now,” Alex says. Michael stares at him and his lips part. Alex wants to run but he refuses to do that. Not this time. Not that it makes a difference, “I’ll see you around.”

“It didn’t feel the same,” Michael says, his voice odd. Or maybe that’s the rushing in his ears, “the music wasn’t like it used to be.”

  
“You’re probably just out of practice,” Alex says and Michael’s features twist.

“I didn’t want this to happen,” he says softly, “I didn’t mean to do this to you and her—“

Alex closes his eyes. He tells himself that this is stupid. He’s masochistic enough to want Michael while he’s with someone else, but even he has his pride. If he’s going to live as someone who can look themselves in the mirror, this isn’t something he wants. He opens his eyes and looks at Michael. Michael is staring at him, trying to judge his reaction. Alex looks down to see the fingers on his hand are trembling. He doesn’t doubt Max’s healing, but Michael has spent years holding his hand in a particular way. He doesn’t know how to relax the muscles yet.

“I’m calling Kyle,” he says. Michael’s head flies up, his eyes wide and desperate and so, so young, “we need to give you some kind of scar that looks like you had surgery. So people won’t ask questions.”

“Yeah, right,” Michael says faintly, like the idea hadn’t occurred. Alex calls Kyle and leaves a message. Michael hasn’t moved, “I didn’t think—“ he begins, “if we weren’t together.”

“I meant what I said,” Alex tells him, “you’re my family,” he does mean that, even around the broken shards of his heart. Michael looks down, embarrassment coming off him in waves, “it was a dick move to heal you without asking,” he repeats.

“Guess it runs in my family?” Michael tries. Alex raises his eyebrows, “too soon,” Michael agrees and flexes his hand, “it feels weird,” he says.

“Can I?” Alex asks.

Michael hesitates for a moment and then nods, moving his hand over to Alex. Alex takes it and carefully slots his fingers through Michael’s, pushing back gently against his palm. Michael looks at him and then tentatively pushes back. Alex meets his force with his own, pushing against him. Finally he feels Michael’s fingers curl around his own knuckles. And for the first time in years he squeezes with all of his fingers. It’s an odd moment that Alex never thought would come and despite everything, he smiles. Even around the bitterness and he wistfulness and maybe the slight jealousy. Michael laughs.

“I can’t believe it,” he says, “dick move but—“ he slides his hand away, “damn,” he adds with a low whistle.

“I’m happy for you,” Alex says honestly as Michael cradles his hand to his chest like something precious, “you’ll adjust,” he says, “you adjusted to not having it. You’ll adjust to having it.”

  
Michael’s head flies up and he stares at Alex who looks away, forcing himself to not wrap his arms around himself. He collects himself as best he can before he looks at Michael. He deserves to be getting everything. Alex knows that as much as he feels like he deserves to be standing there feeling everything break. He blinks and shakes his head.

“Sorry,” he says, “God, I usually can’t get Valenti off the ph—“

Michael jumps forward and awkwardly puts his arms around him.

Alex feels his entire body stiffen but Michael just hugs him. Alex doesn’t want to respond. Doesn’t want to give in to the stinging in his eyes. But he feels the pathetic sob work it’s way up his chest and escape his mouth. Michael holds him tighter, it’s like getting a hug from, well, an alien. Someone who knows the principal of it. But Alex finds himself sinking into the embrace eventually none the less, burying his face in Michael’s shoulder. He wants to hate him. He wants to not have meant the things he said. But he does. Every fucking word and that makes him cling back.

“Max said I didn’t need the scars or the reminder of what people could do and he was right,” Michael says, “I don’t need the scars. I’ve got you here.”

“I still have them,” Alex gets out, feeling more broken than he has in his entire life.

“That’s because you’re a badass,” Michael says. Alex chokes out a laugh sob, “dudes dig scars,” Michael says.

Alex steps back and wipes the back of his hand across his face. Michael looks at him silently for a long moment and the encouraging smile morphs into a look of horror and realization.

“Shit,” he breathes. Alex looks at him, confused, “I gotta go apologize.”

“No,” Alex says, “you need to wait and Kyle needs to pick up his phone.”

“No,” Michael shoots back, “keep trying him but I gotta go do this now.”

“Where are you going?” Alex questions.

“I gotta go apologize to Maria,” he says, checking for his keys and his wallet. Alex nods, “then I gotta make it up to you,” Alex stares at him, now truly stunned, “just wait for me here,” he says and takes off.

Five minutes later Kyle answers.

Twenty minutes later Alex finds himself at the hospital. Thankfully his stoic face can be chalked up to his military upbringing and not the fact that when his oldest brother comes out and says their father was a drug addict all along he practically wants to cartwheel down the hallway. Kyle has to keep his face smooth as well but when their eyes meet it feels like a definite win for Project Shepherd.

“Hey, Guerin, those are for people visiting their loved ones,” Kyle says.

Alex turns to see Michael is standing there clutching the biggest thing of flowers he has ever seen. Kyle declares his bid for sainthood when he lets them into the on call room and gives them five minutes. Not enough time for anything except for Michael to shove the flowers at him.

“Guerin,” Alex begins.

“No, wait, I—“ Michael shifts his weight. He’s nervous, Alex realizes, “I’m not good at this. I’m not gonna be good at it overnight,” he continues, “and I know I did something awful and you could walk away again—“ Alex looks down, “but I’m coming after you this time,” Michael says firmly. Alex stares, “I wanted to say I’m coming after you. In a romantic way not a ‘probing time’ kind of way. Like if you wanted to leave I wouldn’t keep you against your will but I would try very, very hard to win you back,” he continues, “can I?”

“Can you what?” Alex asks.

“Try to win you back?” Michael asks.

Alex looks at him hard.

“Not until you make it up to Maria.”


	3. Isobel finds Alex

“Michael!”

Isobel needs him, now. She doesn’t need the frantic call from Liz, she felt Max go dark. She needs Michael to fix whatever he’s done. Given his mania earlier, she doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but in her guts she knows it’s nothing good. She storms up to the trailer because of course Michael isn’t answering his phone. She wants him to have time, she wants him to recover but that has to come after they fix this. She pounds on the door. 

“Michael come on!” She says, “I know you can hear me!”

“He’s not there.”

Isobel turns. Alex Manes is sitting there. Isobel spends a lot of her time surrounded by torn Levi’s, overcompensating belt buckles and Stetsons. The leather jacket Alex is wearing is gorgeous. Actually everything about him looks very, very good. It’s like the seventeen year old who was respectable with his eyeliner and the warrior had a child. Alex pushes himself up and rocks his heel down. Isobel watches, belatedly realizing it’s his prosthetic. Alex shakes his head and tugs off the jacket, folding it over his arm. He looks up at her, his face carefully smoothed out but Isobel is hyper aware of a liar face when she sees it. 

“Where is he?” She demands. 

“I don’t know,” Alex says.

“What time were you supposed to meet?” She asks. Alex opens his mouth, “don’t deny it. Please,” she doesn’t mean to throw the last word out but she can’t help it. Anymore lies and her head might blow, “I need to find him. Something’s wrong with Max.”

“A few hours ago,” Alex says quietly. 

“What?” Isobel stares, “but—“ she doesn’t get it, “he stood you up?”

Alex looks down and Isobel tries to wrap her head around it. Connect what Michael said in the desert and the promise he made to Alex with the fact that Alex has been waiting for hours in a gorgeous leather jacket while Michael is MIA. She can feel him in the back of her head like usual, she knows he’s okay. He’s just incredibly distracted. Knowing she’s never going to hear the end of it, she focuses on him. Emotions hit her.

Soft.

Vibrations against a hand that’s not hers or his.

Sweet.

Cinnamon.

Old whiskey and pleasepleaseplease let this be good. Easy. Pleasepleasepleaseohgod—

GET OUT OF MY HEAD ISOBEL

Isobel’s eyes fly open and she looks at Alex. She doesn’t credit him with an abundance of brains. If he can’t see what a catch Michael is he’s obviously not smart. She might have to rework that theory with the way things click as Alex’s face goes through a thousand emotions. He hangs his head and there’s pain that’s immediately gone when he lifts his head. Without a word he lets that beautiful jacket fall to the ground.

“Oh my God,” Isobel goes over and grabs it from the dirt, “you can’t let this thing fall apart,” she scolds.

“It’s not important,” Alex says stiffly, “try the Pony. I think Maria should be there.”

“Alex,” Isobel says. Alex shakes his head but he does hesitate. Isobel is torn. Max needs help now but Michael is ruining everything. She is going to put them both in their pods, she decides, “Hang on—“

“I’ll call Liz,” he says, “i’ll meet you wherever Max is.”

“He loves you,” she blurts out. Alex looks away, this isn’t new information, “he just—can’t be around you right now. He told me it hurts—

“I get it.”

“And—“ she stops, “you do?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, “i do.”

Isobel bites her lip. She gets it too, she’s seen Michael’s emotions about Alex. And maybe some protective instinct tells her he deserves to be sitting here, having to prove himself. But the rest of her, the rest of her that is suddenly very aware of how you can be manipulated into doing something and have to bear the consequences, that part is sympathetic. She quickly dusts off the jacket and holds it out to him.

“You should keep it safe,” she advises, “you’re going to need it one day.”

“It’s Maria,” Alex says, cutting through the metaphor, “i can’t.”

“But maybe it’s good they get it out of their systems?” Isobel starts and then winces at the horror on Alex’s face, “God, he’s an idiot,” she says. She can’t even judge Maria. Not in light of everything, “he really loves you.”

“I know,” Alex says, “I’ll see you soon.”

He walks off and Isobel has to refocus. Max. She has to save her other idiot brother. Shaking her head she looks down at the jacket. After everything, for some reason the sight of such a beautiful thing covered in dust is what makes her throat close and her eyes sting. Max. She has to focus on Max. She takes the jacket with her when she goes to the car and drives to the Pony. Michael glares at her when he jumps into the car. 

“Max is in trouble,” she says and floors it.

Michael nods and when he turns, she can see his cheek is pink. Her earlier anger is tempered by the fact Michael may have messed up another thing in his life. She’s seen him on benders before and this is snowballing faster than anything in Roswell should. Suddenly she’s glad she hid the jacket in her trunk. Michael jiggles his knee and runs his fingers over his knuckles. 

“Max is going to be fine,” she says.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“I’m sorry about the head thing,” she continues, “I went to your trailer and you weren’t there.” 

Michael nods and taps his fingers agains the window jam. He’s silent but she can feel the shame radiating off him. Not like when he lied about Rosa but pretty close. A fractured sense of the same thing. But lying about Rosa didn’t have the same agony that he’s trying to stuff down now. He opens and closes his mouth several times. Finally he looks at her. 

“Was anyone there?” He asks. 

Isobel thinks of the lies she’s been a part of. Willingly and unwillingly. She thinks of many things in that moment and for a while afterwards, when this comes up again she will give herself saccharine excuses. But the truth is in that moment she thinks of Maria and she thinks of the boys in this world who believe that their own pain matters more. She thinks of Noah never complaining about her working long hours until recently because he was visiting Rosa. You can’t compete with the dead anymore than you can with the idea of a person. 

“I didn’t see anyone.” 


	4. Michael's Wardrobe Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: poeedamerons asked: Michael was late because he had the same idea and was at Max's looking for his old teenage years clothes stashed there

“Shit,” he swears, “shit!” He echoes, much more frantically when he looks up at the clock, “I swear to fucking god Max—“

Max isn’t there, he’s probably banging Liz somewhere. And if the situation wasn’t desperate, Michael would have waited. But it is and Michael needs to find the guitar. He needs to show Alex his hand. Alex gave it to him before his first deployment, saying it was safer with him than it was at home. Unused was better than shattered. He’d shoved the guitar at Max who had taken it with the first tentative offer to heal his hand. Which had led to their first blow up which had led to his first disorderly arrest. But Max still has his books from high school, he’s definitely got the guitar here somewhere.

Braving a room he never fucking wanted to go to, Michael goes into the bedroom.

Ignoring the signs of obvious sex, he looks around and finds what he’s here for. He bolts over, grabs the case and books it out of the room. He is so sorry the precious musical instrument had to witness his brother having sex. Thank god it isn’t an electric guitar, it might be blown to hell. He puts it in his car and floors it to the junkyard, praying to anyone who might be listening that Alex is still there. Alex kept him waiting for so long, surely he can get an hour or two of sympathy time. Still he breaks every speed limit Roswell has and lucks out he doesn’t get arrested after a particularly reckless three wheel turn.  

But Alex is there.

He has his earphones in and glances at his watch again, more emotions than Michael has names for flickering across his face. He’s in a leather jacket that makes a lot of Michael’s blood go south and has his foot slightly up to fix the seal on his prosthetic so he can stand.Alex fights his father’s war, but his greatest is always with himself. Suddenly nervous, he flexes his hand on the steering wheel. An old, familiar pain shoots up his forearm. He was used to it when it traveled along the deadened nerve endings. Now it sears up his hand along the very live ones. A sound escapes him and his hand comes down hard on the horn.

By the time he gets his head up, Alex is there. His earbuds are looped around his neck and all the frustration is gone, replaced by concern. Michael doesn’t quite have the words to explain what happened. Alex’s brilliance has always been wildly frustrating but Michael has never been happier for it than when he looks at his hand. His eyes widen and he stares for a moment before snapping into solider mode—which, Michael finds, is way fucking hotter when he’s in the leader jacket. It shouldn’t have any bearing but when his feet touch the ground the impact almost makes him black out. Alex immediately cradles his hand to his chest and Michael braces it with his other arm.

“Wait wait,” he says, “backseat.”

Alex opens the door and freezes. Michael knows he recognizes the case. Disappointment at his failed romantic gesture is almost undone by the way Alex touches the case like an old friend. But then his hand spasms again and he doubles over. Alex snaps back into motion and pulls the case out, slinging it over his shoulder and bringing his other arm around Michael. He guides him to the trailer and gets him inside. He sets the guitar down and turns the sink on. Carefully he guides Michael’s hand from his chest and slips it under the water. It takes a moment but the relief is so good that Michael lets his forehead fall against Alex’s shoulder.

“Fuck,” he swears, “that hurt,” he breathes in the smell of Alex and leather, “god, where did you get the jacket?”

“I bought it,” Alex says shortly. Michael pulls up to look at him.

“I had to get the guitar,” he says, trying not to bristle at the guarded look on Alex’s face. No way he’s wearing leather and pulling away from him, “I couldn’t find it, it was in Max’s bedroom. Brendon watched Max and Liz have sex!”

Alex chokes on his own spit. The name of the guitar is for a Alex’s favorite singer, though conveniently Alex’s brothers middle name is the same. Michael remembers the old posters up of the man. First crush. No reason to be jealous. Seeing his opening he presses into it.

“So really the guitar’s the victim here.”

“You’re ridiculous, you know that right?” Alex says, still trying to be upset but failing, “your brother—“

“Don’t talk about my brother banging, we’re lucky the power is still on.”

Alex rolls his eyes and goes to the fridge, coming back with a bottle of water.

“this will help with the spasm,” he says.

Michael chugs most of it, takes his hand from under the tap and flexes his fingers. They don’t hurt.

“We were going to talk?” Alex prods. Stubborn as always. But the stubbornness when directed at them makes something warm and hopeful spark in Michael’s chest. He sidesteps Alex and goes for the guitar, “Michael.”

“We can talk in a minute,” he says. Alex looks like he wants to protest and Michael cracks, “please. I gotta—“ he trails off, “please.”

Alex looks at him for a moment longer and then nods. The camper is impossibly narrow but Michael’s played in weirder places. His hands shake from nerves and it takes a moment to get the case open and the instrument pulled out. He knows he’s miserably out of practice. The guitar is magically in tune. And the strings are new. It doesn’t take a genius to realize the guitar has been taken care of. He’s gonna have to thank Max later. Right now though, he braces his leg and puts the guitar over it.

And for the first time in a decade, music fills the trailer.

And for the first time in a decade, Alex remembers what he was fighting for the entire time.


	5. Texting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: sp-ac-ep-re-si-de-nt asked: So how abt the whole Maria and Michael scene didn’t happen and Michael goes straight back to the airstream and him and Alex talk like actual adults

**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO. :**  Hey  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO. :**  You there?  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO. :**  You check your phone every second I know you’re seeing this.   
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Take me off read you asshole.  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**   I need to talk to you.  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  ALEX

**DO NOT PICK UP:**  What do you want?

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  We said we were gonna talk?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  Two days ago. 

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Seriously? Now you’ve got a timeline? I’ve got a note.

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  Michael,

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Before you start I couldn’t be there because Max went full alien Jesus and I’ve got at least one more day before he gets his ass out of this tomb.

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  Is he dead???  
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  Michael! 

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Yes.  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  But we put him in a spare pod—it’s a long ass story. I’m babysitting him. Which is why I wasn’t there. Does alien Jesus brother buy me an extension?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I’m so sorry  
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  Did you say spare pod?

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I also said long story.   
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Were you waiting long?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  …  
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  I know what you’re doing.

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Good. I’ll make it up to you. This is better anyway.

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  How is this better?

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Right now it’s not easy to look at you without seeing the prison. I want to talk but not seeing you might help. 

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I got it.

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Also we can actually talk without the hot sex. 

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I don’t want to sleep with you!

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Even if I have both my hands back?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  You what?

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Yeah, Max decided I didn’t need the scars. Then he died so I can’t talk to him about it. But hey, bonus I’ve got two hands.   
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Any chance you got your guitars laying around somewhere?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  Did you think you needed the scars?

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Kind of  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  But I”m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, you know? My hand kept cramping up. 

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  Still it doesn’t seem right that he did that without asking.

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Don’t blaspheme alien jesus 

  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I know your brother is tall and holier than thou but where’s the alien Jesus thing coming from?

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Oh Noah.   
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  He’s dead btw

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  He’s what?!

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Dead.  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Also he was an alien and kind of a dick. He told us Max is like the alien savior. Oh and Rosa’s here. 

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I hate you

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  What? I’m filling you in! 

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  You know sarcasm doesn’t travel over text. Can I call you?

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Bad idea. Unless you want everyone eavesdropping.

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  Fine   
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  Can we focus back on us for a minute? Please. The other stuff we can get to.   
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  But I want to talk about us. 

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Okay. You want to start?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I’m more interested to hear about what you thought about what I said last night

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I think your timing is shit  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Your dad had my family locked up. I know you’re not your dad but   
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I see you and I see that  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I don’t know what to do 

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I get it

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  You do?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  For a long time when I looked at you, all I saw was the worst thing my dad did  
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  That was before we knew about everything else

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  No.   
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  What your dad to you was just as bad  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I’m not saying it wasn’t  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  But you get it?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  Yeah  
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  I get it

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**   I don’t know how to look at you and not see that  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  How did you make it go away?  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  It went away right?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  It did but I don’t know how  
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  Time?

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  It’s been ten years  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  We can’t be doing this for another ten years Alex, it’ll kill both of us

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  You’re right, ok? But I don’t want to lose you.

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I don’t want to lose you either  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Did you ever feel ashamed?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I feel ashamed about a lot of things  
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  Be more specific 

  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I feel ashamed that I can’t let you go

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I felt that too  
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  I couldn’t. Not really.

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I don’t want to

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  Really?

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Yeah  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I love you  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  It just hurts like hell to see your right now  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I wish it didn’t

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  But it does   
 **DO NOT PICK UP:**  You went through a lot 

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Don’t coddle me 

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I’m not. I’m saying you need time to heal

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  This isn’t something you come back from, Alex. Not the same anyway.

  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  I know 

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  How?

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**   I have a Purple Heart 

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Shit  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Right  
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Sorry

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  Can we keep texting? Does that work?

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Yeah, we can

  
  
**DO NOT PICK UP:**  Ok  
 **ALEX:**  I’m glad  
 **ALEX:**  I’m here for you, how ever I can be. I meant it when I said you were my family.   
 **ALEX:**  You’re not alone in this. 

  
  
**ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  I’m so pissed Max   
 **ROSWELL SALVAGE CO.:**  Does that make me a bad person?

  
  
**ALEX:**  No  
 **ALEX:**  It just makes you human

  
  
**M. Guerin:**  Being human fucking sucks


	6. Angry Goodbye Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: Malex prompt "if you want to undo the past maybe consider i've died at war. Would make things easier for you, to be with her." my god i need some anst after the finale, i want angry Alex.

“If you want to undo the past maybe-maybe pretend I died over there. That’d make things easier for you.”

It’s a low blow and Michael is truly stunned. Alex wonders if Michael has finally figured out why he isolates. If he realizes he’s too ugly to be loved. Alex has been waiting for this moment for years, hobbling towards it really. Determination sets Michael’s face a moment later and he closes the distance between them, pushing Alex against the island and kissing him so hard Alex can feel it in every part of his body. Even the missing one. Shamefully he presses back into the kiss, though his hands remain locked on the furniture. Michael tastes like whiskey.

Alex pulls away.

Michael lets his hands fall to his sides and looks at Alex desperately. When Alex said he wanted to talk, he didn’t consider the fact that Michael doesn’t know how to communicate. Not really. Not in a way that makes sense. It’s bravado and gestures and everything gets tangled. There isn’t logic to it. The bruised feeling on his lips is as much a desperate overture as it is a conversation and a plea. There isn’t hope here. Just ash. Just embers that will soon go out. Or he prays they will anyway. Michael’s features contort at Alex’s silence and he knows the resignation is on his face.

“We can’t,” he says, trying to be the voice of reason.

Michael shifts his weight and then their lips are on each other again. Whiskey and all Alex takes in the weakness gives it back tenfold. It’s a relapse if he ever had one. But self loathing has always tasted like Michael to him. The only difference is the salt that cuts the kiss like some kind of prelude. Alex gives in and lets himself hold the other man, just with one arm at first but his other soon joins it. This is agony on a new level. It’s still forbidden but in a new way. He knows that but the pressure of all ten of Michael’s fingers makes him feel young and stupid all over again. He pulls back and Michael rests his forehead against him.

“Michael—“

Michael kisses him again, more urgently this time. Like he’s talking in a language that Alex doesn’t speak. But he can taste the apology and the regret and the fear in it. He holds on for as long as he can, but when Michael’s hands move to the nape of his jacket he sinks into the pain and goes to take it off. Michael pulls away and shakes his head, kissing him again as he slides the jacket off. Alex would always hesitate when he saw his hand and eventually Michael learned to hide it. To make his movements smooth and compensate. Now there’s something painfully awkward about how he tugs the jacket down with movements he doesn’t remember.

With the jacket off, he slides his hand under Alex’s shirt. The lack of misshapen joints makes Alex shudder against him. He’s seventeen again as long as he stays in that one sensation. As long as Michael’s hand doesn’t stray to the line that curves his ribs or the patch from his graft. It does eventually, it’s inevitable and Alex feels old and broken. No wonder he’s a shameful secret. Michael tugs his shirt off and Alex gives up the urge to snatch it back. Michael looks at him and seems to read everything like they are speaking the same language. He brushes the back of his hand across the bump of Alex’s ribs. The spurs will go away eventually but they are new right now.

Alex is lucky to come back, they said nothing about him coming back whole.

Michael kisses him again, dragging him back and Alex gives into the pain of kissing him like he wants to. He misses the scars, which curls in him like an ugly secret. He misses the evidence of them, of their relationship. He misses what bound them together. Now there’s nothing. The only one who carries the marks of his father are him. As it should be, Michael didn’t ask for it anymore than he asked for any of this. Alex realizes he’s being nudged towards the bed and shakes his head, finally succeeding in pulling away and taking a step back. He can be addicted to this and he can lie and say he has a stopping point. But he knows the rest of it will end him.

“We’re not doing that,” he says and the rebuke in his tone stops even Michael from continuing. He fumbles for his shirt and throws it on, “this can’t—we can’t. You know we can’t.”

“That’s always your excuse,” Michael says finally and his voice is so hoarse it catches Alex off guard.

“It’s different,” Alex says.

“How?!” Michael demands.

“You know how!” Alex says, “you can have what you want or you can have me.”

“That’s not fair,” Michael says, suddenly more angry than agitated.

“I know,” Alex says, “i gotta go,” he adds unnecessarily. Michael tries to grab him back but he shakes him off and turns, “i don’t want you to fuck this up.”

Michael reels and his hand drops. Fucking things up is what they do. But Michael is whole, he has a chance at doing better. And Alex knows it’s up to him to figure out what to do with his broken pieces. But the bottom line is that their pieces cannot fit together right now. Not while he’s broken and Michael is whole. Apparently that is a universal law regardless of what planet you come from.

“I’ll see you around.”

“Hey Alex?” Michael makes him hesitate, “I’d never pretend that,” the alien says finally, his words coming out with that same painful awkwardness, “it never even crossed my mind.”

Alex nods and steps out into the sun, leaving Michael and his jacket behind.


	7. Fix it by Talking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: blackhawksfan91 asked: Can you write a fic where Alex and Michael end up together at the end of the finale instead of Michael and Maria, (i.e Alex and Michael get secretly married )

Michael doesn’t have a name for what he feels when he sees Alex sitting there.

It’s incredibly selfish, he’s already kept him waiting for god knows how long, but Michael stops for a moment just to look. To deny how this will probably end. Alex is sitting with his foot rocked back so he can pump the air out of his leg when he stands up. He’s in a leather jacket that Michael can freely admit looks like a grown up version of someone he hasn’t seen in a long time. He’s unsure and older and the mess of contradictions matches the storm in Michael’s stomach. When he finally gets to his eyes, he sees Alex looking. Waiting. That does something to Michael he doesn’t want to examine too closely and he pushes out of the car.

“Okay,” He says, trying for steady and landing hopelessly short, “I’m here to talk.”

Alex squints up at him and Michael stands there. Anger hits him first because fuck Alex for looking so collected now when Michael wants to claw his skin off. He’s perfectly still and it’s wildly not fair that he gets to have all the evidence of the past ten years while Michael has to stand there reborn. Oh and fuck him also because he has no problem with Michael towering over him. He knows he’s taller. So fuck his confidence too.

“Okay,” Alex says like that’s an acceptable reply. And then he goes silent.

“Well?”

“I said what I was trying to last night,” he says calmly. Michael clenches his jaw, “you look like you have something to say about it?”

“Fuck you.”

Alex’s coolness slip. Michael revels in the crack he put in the mask. He leans over, grabbing the arms of the chair. Alex can’t get up. It’s a low blow and in the back of his head Michael hears some part of him screaming to stop. The rest of him is sick of being patronized by every dark haired tall man in his life. He’s tired of being on someone else’s schedule. Alex pushes back in the chair but Michael follows.

“You know how badly it hurts to look at you right now? Do you have any idea?” He can practically hear Alex’s heart jump, “and now you want to be together? I don’t have anything left for you Alex. I used it all up while you were running away.”

Alex, masochist that he is, is silent. Because the thing that has always pissed Michael off is that Alex can take endless amounts of pain. For everything. Except them. He doesn’t accuse Alex of being weak aloud. But hell if they’re here to get everything out in the open why the fuck not?

“Why does it take my family being blown up by your father for you to decide we want to be together?”

Alex reels with the accusation and Michael feels the energy of a well landed blow.

“You told me we were done twice, and we were in no danger of bodily harm,” his hands trap down on the chair, “one of these days the bodily harm is going to stick, Alex. Max has gone insane. Who knows what trouble he’s getting into right now, one day he’s not going to be around to fix everything.”

Alex looks confused and Michael gives up, pushing himself back and running his hands through his hair. His new hand gets tangled and he can just pull it free. Because Max decided he needed to be fixed. Because Alex is ready to have this out. Noah decided it was time to drop the fourth alien bomb—why is everyone on their own schedule? Michael wants to kill them all. When he turns around Alex hasn’t risen to the bait. He’s sitting there calmly. He’s staying and Michael wants to kill him.

“What if I want to do easy too?” He bargains again, “what if it’s my turn?”

“I want you to be happy,” Alex says, “if that’s not with me—“

“I don’t know where it is, Alex. You make the decisions for both of us every god damn time!” Alex has the grace to look down, “you’re doing it right now. I’m fucking sick of brunettes and their fucking egos. I’m dating a blonde next time.”

“Excuse me?” Alex pushes himself up as Michael storms to his trailer. And maybe the sad, still in love with Alex part of him slows down to let Alex pump his leg but Alex is trying to stride over with it half sealed, “what other brunette? What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this,” he snarls, shoving his hand in Alex’s face. Solider instincts and something else kick in and Alex grabs his wrist. But when he does all Michael can think about is Max frantically grabbing him and shoving his power at him against his will. He rips his hand back and lashes out with something else before he realizes it. Alex tumbles back and immediately rolls out of the energy Michael has directed at him, getting to his feet. It’s New Mexico. Everyone has a gun but seeing Alex grab his brings Michael crashing to earth. Horror wipes whatever he’s thinking about as Alex stares at him, “I—“

“It’s okay,” Alex telegraphs his movements, holstering his firearm and holding his hands to show they’re empty. That he’s not a threat, “Michael. Talk to me.”

Michael can’t talk. He’s physically incapable around the weight crashing down on him. Every time he’s been with Alex, been around Alex, looked at Alex, he’s been careful. He’s never slipped with his powers. The closest he’s ever come has been with Alex’s dad and his hand has always been a reminder that he can do that. Humanity is scum, sure, hope is dangerous, yes,  but he can survive the danger. Max has taken his focal point and now Alex is covered in filth because of him. The jacket streaked. He drops hard onto the step of the airstream. Alex is dirty because of him. His powers. This is his fault. Like so many other things. Alex telegraphs his movements as he approaches but Michael just stares at the track his body made. What if he had gone harder? What if Alex had fallen wrong and he killed more family? Maybe that was why he grew up alone,  they knew. They had to know.

“Guerin, look at me,” Alex says, gently touching his forearms. Michael grips the leather of his jacket sleeves, “I’m okay.”

“I’m not,” Michael croaks back.

“I know,” Alex says.

“Is that why—“

“No,” Alex tells him emphatically, “in that place, you tried to save me. You did the same thing I did,” he says, “I didn’t know how it felt.”

“It’s done,” Michael mumbles.

“And I can’t imagine the damage,” he says, “but if you loved me, if I loved you through everything, I thought it deserved a chance. We deserved a chance.”

Michael stares at him and Alex moves and sits next to him. Michael hears the seal break and knows if he runs Alex will be stuck there. Alex is so rarely vulnerable around him, he doesn’t know what to do with him laying his cards out constantly. Michael always finds himself matching the vulnerability as much as he can. It hurts less that way. Now even the big secrets are out between them, more armor piled there and all the soft bits being exposed. Michael can feel the grime on his hand. On all five of his fingers.

“I never used my powers on you,” he says looking at Alex, “I worked so hard to make sure I never slipped. Not around you. Not even when—“ his fingers dig into the jacket, “I was so careful.”

“I figured,” Alex says, loosening his good hand, “can I?” Michael nods and Alex gently takes Michael’s hand in his.

Michael doesn’t expect him to kiss his knuckles.

He’s done it once or twice before, but Michael’s never felt it past the pressure. And then only if he means it. Now he feels the softness of Alex’s lips and the scruff on his chin. He feels everything and his fingers tighten around the hand that grasps his. When Alex pulls back, Michael scrambles up and grasps both of Alex’s cheeks in his hands. He can feel them, if he dug his fingers in he could mark them. Alex stares up at him as Michael lets his hand move to Alex’s neck and chest, over his heart, everywhere he can’t touch. They’re outdoors and he is touching him and he felt him kiss his knuckles. Individually none should matter but all together it hurts. It hurts but in a good way. Like the ache after sex or the strain of muscles doing their job. It’s the hurt of meant to be. His hand hesitates for only a moment before going down the ridges of Alex’s abs and moving lower after Alex nods.

The solider hisses through his teeth at the contact, his eyes going to the door. Michael stills but Alex looks at him and nods. Because Alex is fucking determined and stubborn. But Michael is not cruel. He pulls Alex up and wraps his arm around him as he brings his heel down, though if Michael has anything to say about it the prosthetic is coming off in the next five minutes. Along with most of his clothes. Alex goes into the trailer and Michael moves forward, kissing him urgently. He digs his hands into Alex’s scalp and drags them along the muscles of his back. Alex is the only person who gets why this is such a mindfuck, why this is so important. Alex pushes him back and runs his hands along his arm. Michael nods frantically and Alex kisses his hand, kisses down his fingers—

Puts his fingers in his mouth.

Michael almost goes full teenager and looses it in his pants right there. Alex’s mouth is warm and wet and Michael feels it. Feels everything right down to the suction when he works his throat. His fingers dig into the nape of Alex’s neck as Alex looks up at him. He releases Michael’s hand with a soft pop and Michael feels the cold. But Alex kisses him again and guides Michael’s hands past his belt where they can feel other things. Michael presses his forehead to Alex’s, breathing in sharply.

“We were supposed to talk,” he mumbles.

“We will,” Alex says, holding Michael’s hand against him, “believe me, we will. Do you believe me?”

Michael nods.

God help him, he always has.


	8. Max's Coma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: Max couldn’t bring back Rosa but it drained so much of his energy he is in a coma and Liz, Michael, (Alex who was with him), and Isabell all arrive at the same time to help because they felt his pain

“I get it,” Alex says finally.

Michael’s head flies up.

“You do?”

Alex nods.

“Looking I you hurt for a really long time,” he says, his voice dull to his own ears, “it was worse when we were around each other.”

Michael ducks his head.

Alex wonders why their stars never seem to align properly. They’re like a rubiks cube. When you think one side is figured out, another side is completely scrambled. You can’t just fix one side. It doesn’t work like that. Which doesn’t make this any less painful. Everything making sense doesn’t make this better. It just hurts. But Alex gets it. You can love someone and not be able to be around them. He wishes he didn’t understand that. He wishes he could feel the same way Michael always seemed to when he tried to explain. Instead he pushes himself up.

“I’m gonna go,” he says.

“I don’t want you to,” Michael mutters, but he’s more relaxed than he has been this entire conversation.

“I know,” Alex says, “but you need me to.”

He can do this. He can walk away and protect Michael in the way he needs it. For once. He looks back to see Michael rub at his chest uncomfortably and he wants to tell him he feels that too. But the sadness and discomfort is starting to take on a panicked edge. Alex has seen that look only once before. A few days ago at a prison where Michael lost his family. It’s not a look he ever wants to see again. He takes a step back to Michael as Michael bolts up so fast his chair goes flying back. His hand gropes outwards and Alex grabs it, steadying Michael as he struggles to take a breath.

“Max,” he says, “I can’t—I can’t feel him,” his eyes go wet and bright, “I can’t feel him!”

“We’re going to find him,” Alex says, “can Isobel feel him?” He doesn’t want to get a run down on the powers right now, “Michael!”

“Yeah, yeah—“ Alex keeps a grip as Michael fumbles for his phone, his hands shaking so badly he can barely get it out of his pocket. Isobel is already calling, “Iz!”

“It’s the cave,” she says, “I’m on my way.”

“I’ll drive,” Alex says.

Michael looks at him for a moment, about to say no. But then he nods and follows Alex out to where his car is parked. Michael scrambles in and Alex puts the car in gear. Michael thumbs in coordinates and Alex follows them as Michael’s emotional exhaustion crashes over him. He curls into himself on the seat, slumped against the window. For a man who is constantly loud enough to practically signal aliens with his voice, it’s a horrifying sight. Something Alex hasn’t seen Michael look like since he was a punk run away trying not to get sent back to the system that failed him so many times.

  
“He’s going to be okay,” Alex says, risking becoming the source of Michael’s anger. Hoping against hope that Michael won’t see it that way. Michael doesn’t say anything and Alex hands his phone to him, “call Kyle.”

“Huh?”

“Call Kyle. Max might need a doctor and he’s the best we have.”

Michael looks at him for a moment and then fumbles to call. Alex keeps driving out into the desert as Michael speaks, frowns and then puts the phone on speakerphone.

“Alex?”

“Yeah?” Alex says.

  
“Look I’m on my way but, uh, heads up. I may have given your father a high dose of barbiturates so he couldn’t shoot me. He’s alive but he’s in a coma. You’re probably going to get a call from one of your brothers soon,” Kyle hesitates, “if you don’t want my help—“

“Kyle it’s fine. Thank you for not shooting him,” he says.

“I’m on my way,” Kyle says and sounds relieved.

Alex glances over at Michael whose staring at him. The abuse they’ve both gone through has always been this uniting thing, unspoken but very real in a depraved way. But Michael has always had the luxury of thinking he may have come from somewhere good. Someone good. The confirmation is now there as best they can tell. Alex comes from rot and evil.  There’s never been any hope there but now it’s laid out even worse. Michael’s would-be family has always been sacred to him. Now it’s just another thing Alex’s family is responsible for taking from him.

“If he’d shot him it wouldn’t have changed anything,” Alex says.

Michael doesn’t respond.

The car is barely parked before he’s bolting out, ignoring the shout of his name that Alex yells. Max has gone dark. The family he’s lost is an indescribable pain, it’s one he literally does not have the ability to comprehend fully. He’s got on frame of reference for a mother who loves him or a father who protects him. Not in a way that doesn’t hurt. But Max. Max is very real. And Michael has a very real frame of reference for losing him. Not in the way where they don’t talk, in the way where Mrs. Evans comes and takes him away. Michael races into the cave and skids to a stop.

Rosa is crumpled by the weird ass altar Noah made for her. Her burns are half healed, but she is very, very dead. Michael remembers the heat of the fire. There’s nothing left of the prison but if there was, they would look like Rosa. He rips his eyes from the sight and looks further into the cave where something far more horrifying waits.

Liz is breathing for Max.

Michael is good at thinking on his feet but for a moment he is paralyzed. His life is laid out in a perfect line. The burned past is behind him, begging for his attention. And in front of him, in front of him are the things that matter in his life. He has a moment where he doesn’t know where to go. What to choose. But some part of him does. Some part of him always, always does. It feels like ripping himself apart each time, but the living always win. He scrambles over to Liz and Max. Liz is focused entirely on him, counting softly. She pinches his nose and seals her lips over his and Michael watches his chest rise with her air.

“I think he tried to save Rosa,” she says, her fingers pressing into Max’s neck, “he’s got a pulse but he was barely breathing—“

“We called Kyle,” Michael says.

She nods. Satisfied with Max’s pulse, she pinches his nose and gives another breath.

“We just found her,” Michael blurts out, “we didn’t know.”

“I believe you,” Liz says, giving him a quick smile before she breathes for Max again. She’s steady but he knows she’s barely holding on. He can’t imagine seeing the body of a family member like that, “Michael I—“

“I’m gonna move her,” he says, realizing what she can’t ask. Relief crumples her features, “I got this, just keep doing that.”

He goes over to the body.

Fuck Noah. Fuck him so hard. Carefully he tucks the blankets around Rosa and covers her. He picks her up and comes out of the cave. When he does step into he light, he realizes where Alex is. Isobel looks frantic and Alex is speaking to her quietly. Isobel is listening and when Alex sees him, he shifts so that Michael can slip out and put Rosa’s body where Liz can’t see it. He comes back and goes over to Isobel and Alex.

“Iz!”

“Michael!” Isobel grabs him in a hug that crushes his ribs, “I almost crashed over here—“ she presses her hand to her forehead, “I felt him—“

  
“Me too,” Michael says, “he’s in there. He’s alive.”

“I thought I might make it worse,” Isobel admits.

“No, no way. Come on,” he says, guiding her into the creepy ass shrine.

Isobel inhales sharply at the sight of Max. Liz has stopped breathing for him and Michael can see his chest rising and falling. But Liz has propped him up so his head is on her lap. She’s bent over him, whispering something with her hands cradling him. Michael can see she’s got his hand pressed to her chest, the glow on her skin echoing the one in his hand. But Liz hasn’t been hurt as far as he can tell. She’s got nothing to heal. Which can only mean—

“Oh gross,” he mutters. Alex raises an eyebrow, “Max used his powers during sex.”

Isobel’s lips press into a disproving line, but some of the tension on her face eases slightly at the joke. Liz is so focused on Max she doesn’t hear them and Max probably wouldn’t hear them anyway if Liz has his hand that close to her boobs.

“I’m here,” Kyle says, running into the room, “is that hair? Human hair?” He demands looking at the shrine.

“Kyle!”

Kyle pushes past them. He pauses only a moment, taking in the sight of the pod, of Liz with the glowing handprint and of Max laying there.

“He was barely breathing when I found him,” she says, “when I put his hand here he started to breathe again.”

“Let me check him,” he says, “keep his hand there,” he quickly does several checks that Michael vaguely recognizes before he grabs his pen light and pulls open Max’s eyes. He looks at Liz, “take his hand away and let me try again,” he says. Liz looks at him for a moment and then carefully removes his hand from her skin, gripping it tightly as Kyle does the same thing. He’s doctor training takes over and he looks at Michael and Isobel, “he’s comatose, best I can tell. But he’s breathing. He needs a hospital.”

“He can’t,” Isobel speaks up, “he can be at my house,” she says firmly. Then she looks at Michael, “you should come to.”

Michael nods.

He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

Liz keeps Max close and rides with him in the back of the car, holding him close. Michael can see his own exhaustion mirrored on her face. He doesn’t get how so much can happen, Max can do so much stuff and yet the moment things go south he’s the first person Michael looks for. It’s disconcerting to see him laying there so limp. Max is never limp like that. Especially not after the mania he had earlier. They settle him in the guest room while Isobel gets him sheets for the other couch. No-one wants to go in the master bedroom.

“Thank you,” He says to Alex finally, when everyone’s settled, “you didn’t have to come back like that—“ Alex frowns, “but thank you.”

“I don’t know if this is true,” Alex says, “but the only way it stopped hurting was to face it and be around you.”

Michael shifts his weight uncomfortably and looks up at Alex who knows what he’s going to say, even before he does.

  
“I’m not ready for more hurt,” he says.

“That doesn’t make you a coward,” Alex offers. Michael chews his lip and looks away, “I’ll be here when you are,” Alex rashly promises.

“Huh?” Michael seems surprised. Alex keeps his face smooth.

“You waited a decade for me to get my shit together,” Alex says, “I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

“But—“ Michael doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. Alex isn’t sure he can ever make up for his part in making Michael feel like he’s not good enough. But fuck if he isn’t going to try, “why?”

  
“You need it right now,” Alex says, “you gave me what I needed—“

“I wasn’t happy about it,” Michael tells him, looking incredibly nervous to admit it. Alex nods, “oh,” Michael realizes, “but—“

“I’m still going to do it,” Alex says. Michael doesn’t know how they’ve switched with Alex being the vulnerable one and him retreating. But he doesn’t like the feeling, “no matter what happens, I’m okay with waiting for you.” Alex is careful not to put limits on it, he knows that’s what Michael is waiting for. Instead he looks at him, “call me. If you need anything, if you want to talk—I’m here,” he says. Michael is silent so he turns for his car.

“Wait, wait!” Michael grabs his sleeve and gets in front of him, “I hate this. I hate it. You gotta know—“

“I do,” Alex assures him before the messy desperation can continue, “I promise, I know better than anyone.”

“But what if—“ he stops. There’s a million ways this could go wrong and nothing will end the way it should. And then what? He’ll have wasted so much of everyone’s time. If he doesn’t figure this out. Alex grasps his hands and carefully cradles them, “what if I fuck this up?”

“You won’t,” Alex says and Michael doesn’t know how he’s so certain, “I believe in you.”

Michael looks away. The weight of this thing has always been what pushes Alex away. Now he feels the urge to have it do the same to him. Instead he flips his hands and grabs Alex’s in both of his. They’re so close it’s too easy to rest their foreheads together. Michael wants to stay like this forever, but he can’t. The pain is roaring up and he’s going to drown and take Alex with him. All he can do is step back, look at him and give him the best smile he can manage.

“It’s too soon for x-files jokes,” he says.

Alex scoffs, rolls his eyes and smiles back.

It’s the image he’s going to take with him, Michael decides and turns to the house so he doesn’t have to watch Alex leave again.

Alex waits until he’s inside to get in his car and pull away.


	9. The Leatherman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: That finale really messed me up and I was just wondering if you'd be down to write more hurt Alex with him not forgiving Michael and moving on? (I love Michael but I just need more of Alex finally moving on after that shitty move)

He feels nothing as he looks down at his father.

It’s unsettling. He’s so used to being overcome with emotion of one kind or another. But now there’s nothing. He’s not sure he’s felt much recently, it just seems kind of pointless if he’s being honest. Maybe some part of him thought seeing his father on life support would change things but it doesn’t. Jesse Manes wins in the end. Even in Alex’s own emotions.

Alex should have expected nothing less.

He leaves the room still feeling numb. The white washed walls and smell of antiseptic make his leg ache. If leaving didn’t look so suspicious, he would. Instead he gets some hospital swill and tries not to remember the last time he was in the hospital.

“Alex?”

Alex turns at the sound of his name to see Michael standing there. The anger and resignation that’s churned in the pit of his stomach falls aside at the look on Michael’s face. Something is terribly, terribly wrong. Michael looks small and scared, in a way Alex hasn’t seen ever. Not even when they were in the prison and his emotions seemed to take up the whole space. Alex doesn’t know what he’s allowed to do and that also makes this hard. He takes a step forward and even with how small he is, Michael seems to collapse in on himself. His entire body language projects that touching him is not going to end well. Not because he’ll attack but because he can’t take it. He’ll fall apart. So Alex waits.

  
“Michael what happened?” He asks.

Michael looks at him in any way but straight on. The guilt seems to come off of him in waves. He looks over his head for signs of anyone else but it’s just the pair of them. So he focuses back on Michael. Michael just motions and Alex nods. Michael leads them into a room labeled a closet and Alex steels himself to reject whatever is about to happen. He’s used to Michael’s need for the physical over communication. But the closet opens into a full room with all the equipment. Right now the monitors are beeping and a ventilator is hissing. It’s so much like his father’s room except the person in the bed isn’t someone he hates.

It’s Max.

“What happened?” Alex questions, zeroing in on the figure. Max looks comically large on the hospital bed, but the tubes going in him seems to change everything. Alex thinks of the aliens and the prison. They aren’t supposed to be here. But when he turns back to Michael, he gets the sense that this wasn’t a choice, “Michael?”

“Max brought Rosa back,” Michael mumbles, “it killed him.”

“But—“ Alex looks at the monitors.

  
“Kyle brought him back,” Michael continues in that same stilted tone, “he’s not breathing on his own.”

Alex gets suddenly why Michael looks the way he does. Max is his family. There isn’t that could have been or things that weren’t. There is Max who has always been there. Alex has been wondering what the straw that breaks Michael will be. Not that he’s ever wanted it. But he knows it’s coming. No, he corrects, it’s here. And God help him he doesn’t know how to be there for Michael when Michael’s broken his heart. No more than Michael knew how to be there for him in the mirrored version of this situation.

“He’ll be okay,” he says. Michael looks down, “you’ll both be okay.”

Something tugs at Michael and Alex is incredibly envious of how quickly he starts feeling things again.

“Because you said so?” He challenges.

“Yeah,” Alex says, “I’ll see you around. “

* * *

 

They keep seeing each other around.

Michael slips in and out of the hospital. Isobel has to get over her power issues a lot faster than she should because they have to hide Max. Who knew avoiding the hospital was the easy thing to do? Kyle helps. Liz helps. Everyone helps and Michael wants to tell them all to stay the hell away. No one gets to come near his family. People coming near his family means that people are going to hurt them, it’s just how the world works. But they ignore him. That’s also how the world works.

Alex is a shadow through all of it.

He’s intimately familiar with Alex’s gaze on him and nothing else. He knows he doesn’t have the right to have feelings about it, but he’s pissed off anyway. His nice, shiny relationship comes to a fucking crashing burning end about five seconds after he kisses Maria. He strums the guitar and when he looks up, what’s on her face is nothing he ever wants to be on the receiving end of. He’s never had someone look that cripplingly disappointed in his entire life.

“I can explain,” he starts.

“What possible explanation could you have for that?” Maria demands. He falters, “what was your plan here, Guerin? Ignore my glowing, fixed hand, anyway here’s Wonderwall?”

“Oasis sucks,” he says which is the wrong thing to say, “I didn’t have one!”

“Did you think I wasn’t going to notice?” She demands. He doesn’t really have an answer for that.

So she throws him out, which is fair. But it happens about ten seconds before his phone rings to Isobel telling him Max is dead. Then Valenti correcting he’s not dead. And Michael just can’t. He can’t. He’s not a runner but this is that wall that everyone talks about. He can go no further. He’s turned from someone who can knuckle down and do anything to the kid who spent countless hours screaming at the stars. For someone who was a few towns over. He can’t with any of the things happening in his life. It takes him too long to finally work up the guts to approach his Alex Manes shaped shadow.

“Whose here?” He asks finally.

  
Alex doesn’t call him the litany of names he deserves.

“My dad,” he says, “he took a dose of drugs he’s allergic to. Doctors are calling it a suicide attempt.”

Michael looks for Alex’s reaction but he has none. Gingerly he sits and Alex doesn’t move away, but the shift he makes towards the far wall stings. Michael doesn’t think it’s fair after everything that Alex is hurt by his fuck up, but when has life ever been fair to him? So he ignores it. It’s one more fight he can’t stomach having right now.

“You okay?” He asks.

“About that?” Alex says, “I mean, obviously my suicidal father needs to get the help he’s been clearly ignoring.”

Michael knows that’s bullshit. But in that moment, he also recalls every sign of suicide he’s looked up and committed to memory. It’s hard with his own empathy out of whack. But he tries to look at things objectively. He tells himself he knows Alex, but Alex feels like a stranger at the moment. He’s done something bad, he realizes. Alex has shut him out. Sure he’s tried to before but it’s been a half hearted attempt at best. More because he knows he should shut him out, but he’s never quite succeeded. Now Alex looks at him with the cool, detached gaze of a stranger.

“We should talk,” Michael starts and Alex shakes his head.

  
“We’ve got nothing to talk about. I have to get back before someone sees.”

It’s familiar, Michael tells himself. It’s familiar but he has never felt Alex mean the words like he does when he stands up. He holds Michael’s gaze for a moment and Michael throws up every wall he has. He can’t deal with this right now while his mom is ash and his brother has a machine breathing for him. Alex doesn’t care if his father is dead but he cares about his brother. That takes precedence. So he nods and gets up. Shifts his weight because he is that level of dirt and gets the hell out of there.

A shadow Alex will remain.

* * *

 

He fucks his father’s doctor to feel something.

The doctor is hot and good with his hands. He’s also his father’s doctor but Alex refuses to unpack his daddy issues here. He just wants to feel and if the emotion is out, then he’s going to do the physical part of it. It’s quick and hard and the ache he feels he savors when it’s done. At the end, the doctor writes him a prescription for an anti-chafe ointment.

“Romantic,” Alex says.

“First time you’ve done it with that on?” He shrugs, “yeah, won’t be the last. It’ll help.”

“Thanks,” Alex says.

The doctor nods, kisses him again and Alex leaves first.

Alex wishes he would run into Michael just to shove it in his face. But he doesn’t. Not exactly. He runs into Valenti who yanks him into the room where Max’s monitors are going crazy. It’s a miracle they’re not being heard.

“He’s setting them off,” Kyle says, “with his electricity. I need to monitor him but the alarms—“

Alex nods and goes over, looking at the machines. He has to get to the wires. He knows one person in that room who has a leatherman. He goes over to Michael who is pressed against the wall. Paralyzed for once. Alex aches to help him. He also aches to slap him. Instead he finds it and slips it from his pocket. Michael’s hand locks around his wrist and—and—

His hand is fine.

Alex stares and Michael looks at him desperately. But Alex has to get to the monitors to help Max. So he gently pulls away and goes back over to them. If someone had told him that he would be using his old leatherman to disable an alarm so an alien could survive, Alex would have laughed at them. The thing still works. Even as he focuses on his job he can see how well cared for it is, not that he would expect less from Michael. The alarms cease and Kyle grips Max’s wrist, looking at his watch and the monitor.

“Oh my God. Max!”

Liz is on the bed instantly, cupping Max’s cheeks. Michael slides down the wall like all the wind has been taken out of him. However small Max may have looked with the tubes and needles, he’s a big guy and it takes a lot for Alex to hold him down. Michael scrambles over and takes the other side. Some combination of the pair of them is enough to hold him down, though the real force keeping him there is Liz. He would never hurt her, especially not physically. It occurs to him as he looks that he’s never been hurt by Michael’s power either. Despite all the fucked up shit they’ve done to each other.

“Tube’s coming out, you gotta cough for me,” Kyle says, raising the bed. Liz smiles encouragingly. Kyle is careful, gentle and quick but Max still winds up doubled over around Liz’s arm, coughing violently as she whispers to him in Spanish, “Okay, Max, can you look at me?”

First Max looks at Michael.

“I’m so sorry,” he says.

Michael shakes his head and moves away. Alex doesn’t understand what’s going on, but from the way Michael cracks his knuckles he can piece it together. Max lays back and looks at Liz, she’s crying freely and his own face echoes that. When he opens his mouth, she wraps her arms around him and shakes her head.

“Later,” she says, “I can’t yell at you right now.”

Max nods and leans into her embrace as Kyle holds up the tongue depressor.

Alex approaches Michael with the tool but Michael shakes his head.

“Keep it,” he says.

“I don’t want it,” Alex lies. He does, just not as badly as he wants Michael to have it back.

“Too bad,” Michael says.

Alex puts it on the window sill and leaves.

When it slots itself into his back pocket, he has to rethink Michael never using his powers to hurt him.

* * *

 

“What?” Alex asks when he sees him again.

Michael doesn’t have an answer for that either. Alex is pissed and Michael gets why. Alex gave him the leatherman instead of a note to tell him he was leaving. Now Michael has given it back and hurt Alex in the process. And Michael feels like crap but he also feels pissed at Alex for being on a high horse like this. Mostly he’s fucking jealous that Max gets to go borderline stalker and get the girl but he fucks up once and Alex wants nothing to do with him.

“We said we were gonna talk,” he says.

“Right,” Alex says, “I said we have nothing to talk about.”

“Yeah but now you don’t mean it,” Michael points out.

Alex glares at him and Michael shouldn’t be as glad for it as he is. He can work with pissed off Alex. He can work with any Alex but pissed off Alex is an old friend. But then Alex closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and when he looks at him the pissed off is gone. Replaced by the smooth, flat look. Michael’s stomach bottoms out and before he fully thinks it through, he steps towards him. The problem is that Alex has his back against a wall already and that step brings them close to pinning territory. Usually when Alex looks at him like that it’s because they’re in public. But his eyes don’t drag to anyone else. They stay focused on him.

“Wait,” Michael hears himself say but he doesn’t recognize the tone.

“No,” Alex says, “I’m not waiting.”

“What?” Michael stops. That stupid foster kid abandonment issue rears it’s head, much to his displeasure and he feels the panic start, “you—“ he licks his lips, searching for any kind of moisture in the suddenly dry air, “no.”

There’s no reaction which makes Michael want to yell. Alex just looks at him silently. Michael feels his familiar way with Alex but the dread is new. The finality is new. He’s only felt it once and that was at the bar. The bar where he consequently did the really stupid thing. He just keeps doing stupid things and Alex does too. But Alex isn’t right. That much he knows. Max has been a good excuse but Max is leaving and Michael doesn’t have a reason to be here. Alex keeps looking at him but he’s not waiting. He was clear about that.

“Fine,” Michael says, “don’t.”

No reaction.

Michael turns around and walks out.

No-one stops him.

He keeps going until he’s far enough away to unleash hell on the unsuspecting sand dunes. He’s not Max. He’s good with his powers. But he hasn’t really been using them and everything that’s happened means going out for acetone hasn’t exactly been a priority. What comes from him is a shockwave that’s so big, it seems like driving out here doesn’t really matter. The earth cracks in an ugly ugly line like Michael’s gouged it. He can add it to his list of stupid fucking things he’s messed up lately.

“Michael?”

Fuck this.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” he says, looking at Max.

“Michael I’m—“

“What? Sorry?” Michael demands. Max looks at him, “sorry doesn’t do me any good, Max. Sorry doesn’t change anything.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t!” Michael doesn’t recognize the voice that comes from his lips. Neither does Max, given how he stares at him, “you have no fucking clue.” At the very least Max doesn’t have the grace to say anything to the contrary, but that doesn’t help Michael much. Instead Max lowers himself and sits, “I got no more scars for you to take away,” he snarls, “nothing else here you can fix without my consent.”

“Okay,” Max says, apparently going monosyllabic, “I’m just gonna sit here.”

“I don’t want you here!”

Max sits as Michael exhausts himself like a god damn kid and then finds himself on the ground next to him. The pent up energy expended, he can do nothing but try to stave off the emotional fallout.

“I fucked everything up,” he admits finally, “I don’t know what to do.”

“That,” Max says, “I get.”

“I hate you,” Michael says but the force is gone from the worlds.

Max smiles.

* * *

 

Michael is waiting outside his car.

Alex fights the urge to say he’s going to just walk home. Or maybe he can get one of those hospital wheelchairs. Michael’s got his hands shoved in his pockets and he’s slouched over, but there’s determination in every inch of him and Alex isn’t sure what to make of it. He doesn’t want them to keep torturing each other. But he doesn’t want to be another person whose abandoned Michael. So he goes over.

“Guerin.”

“I know, I know,” Michael says, “we’re not talking. I just want you to listen.”

Alex wants to say no. He’s done such a good job of holding himself to how he wanted to act. But Michael chews his bottom lip and Alex can feel the weight in his pocket. So he shifts his weight and doesn’t tell him to get off his car. Michael sparks nervousness for a moment before he looks up at him.

“I think you were right. You shouldn’t wait,” Alex nods around the hollow feeling, “but you should know I’m not giving up,” that catches him off guard, which makes Michael continue, “I’m not saying any of that creepy I’m not letting you go or I’m coming after you. You want to go, that’s fine. But I’m gonna win you back.”

“Michael,” Alex starts, loathing the feeling this kicks off inside him.

“I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy. I know it’s not. But I’m gonna do it.”

Alex stares at him. He knows Michael’s stubbornness. He knows their relationship doesn’t work without it. Just like he knows the only chance in hell they have is if he steps up. He doesn’t know if he’s ready. If either of them are ready. But he’s definitely not prepared to once again let Michael humiliate himself while he turns the other way. Instead he picks the leatherman out of his pocket and pushes it into Michael’s chest. He wasn’t brave enough to stick around the first time. And Michael was never brave enough to confront him about it.

“It’s still a loan,” he reminds him.

“You’ll get it back,” Michael promises, closing his fingers over it, “one day.”


	10. Sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: fic prompt: instead of going to Maria Michael actually meets waiting Alex at his trailer, they talk(you know, Alex wanted to say sorry for some things like pushing Michael away) , kiss, make out and are happy for like a second

Alex pushes himself up as the car skids to a stop.

He tries not to look as nervous as he feels as Michael scrambles out. Something is wrong, or it’s more wrong than usual. Michael looks wild eyed and wound up. Alex fights for his own serenity, they are here to talk. Michael strides towards him.

“Guerin—“

Michael kisses him instead.

Surprise kicks the thoughts from his head. Michael is a passionate kisser. The kind you never want to stop kissing. In trying to walk away, Alex is only moderately ashamed to say that the thought of not kissing Michael again did make him hesitate. But physical passion has never been the problem. Michael pushes his lips apart and slips his tongue into his mouth and Alex clings to the thought of them talking even as he melts into the kiss. Michael is naturally hot but at the moment, he’s almost feverish. He kisses him for a long long moment, one that sends the feeling through his entire body. He’s so dazed he barely registers that when Michael is cupping his cheeks it’s with all ten of his fingers.

“Wha—“ he tries again and just manages to knock foreheads with Michael before he can kiss him senseless, “Guerin.”

“Please,” Michael says and the voice that comes is broken in a dozen different ways, “please I can’t—I can’t talk right now. I need you to not make me talk,” Alex opens his eyes to see Michael’s are bright and wed and pleading, “I need you to make me not think about it.”

He should say no. He should but Michael succeeds in kissing him again. Desperate and urgent but this time there’s a moment when a sob escapes him and the noise echoes in Alex’s mouth. He goes to pull back but Michael’s fingers curl around his scalp.

“Please,” he says again, his voice breaking around the word, “please. I need to forget just for a second”

Alex pulls back and looks at Michael. He looks upset but he doesn’t look drugged or drunk or not in control of himself. He looks like he knows what he wants. It’s been a long time since they’ve been intimate with each other. But it’s been even longer since Michael has asked for anything like this. They definitely haven’t tried it since Alex lost the bottom part of his leg. But Michael is pleading and if he wants to forget, if he wants to not talk, Alex decides he can do that. He grabs Michael’s wrist and bites back the million questions he has about why his hands match and leads him inside. Make that a million and one, in the dimmer light of the trailer he can see the matching hand is fucking glowing.

Instead he kisses Michael again, trying to put all the things he’s not sure he got across last night through him and into Michael. By osmosis. It won’t work but it makes him kiss him harder, like the fact that it won’t work can be fixed if he just presses hard enough. Navigating the trailer isn’t always the easiest thing but the bed is close. Michael resists when he tries to push him down. Shaking his head and Alex kisses him again. Separation is out. He can work with that. Michael kisses against his neck and breathes in right at the collar of his jacket, like he’s trying to commit this to memory. Alex tugs him closer by his belt loops and arches his neck to give him better access. Michael slips his hands into the jacket and pushes it down and Alex helps him by tugging his arms free. MIchael looks up at him and Alex wastes no time in kissing him again, burying his fingers in Michael’s curls.

Michael leans into every touch. When they’re finally bare from the waist up, they wind up on the bed. Michael keeps his head buried in the back of his neck as he undoes his shoes and then drops his pants. He turns back around, catching Michael’s lips again and eases him back, pressing his hips into the mattress. Michael’s hand goes for his prosthetic and he pushes them away. This is new and somehow it’s more difficult, but he leans into the pain. Keeping it on is probably the most vulnerable he’s felt during sex but looking at Michael has always helped him get past these moments. He can’t say this is going to be the most elegantly he’s ever had sex, but it’s definitely more than some quick, hot fuck. Then again with Michael it inevitably is. Michael pushes up as he gets to his feet and they wind up on the edge of the bed, Michael’s legs on either side of him and their mouths and fingers exploring everything.

“How do you—“

“Just stay there,” Alex says.

Michael’s eyes darken and he nods towards a box. Alex finds the stuff he needs and puts it within arms length before he kisses Michael again. When he pushes his fingers into him, Michael pulls back with a swear. Alex leans forward and kisses his neck and shoulders as he uses his hands to make Michael ready. Michael’s breathing grows more and more erratic as he tries to chase Alex’s fingers. There’s one moment where he lets out a whimper and Alex’s fingers pause but Michael pulls him back and Alex rocks his hand watching Michael chase the sensation. When he’s finally sheathed in him, Michael bites his lip so hard it’s almost bloody. Alex soothes the mark with his own mouth, wondering how many different bodily fluids Michael plans on loosing. Michael rolls his hips and Alex grips them tighter, stilling his motion.

“Alex,” he says, but it comes out desperate and stifled. Al-Lex. Alex thinks he never wants to hear his name said another way, “please—“

“Shhh, I got you,” he says, running  his fingers through Michael’s curls. Michael leans into the touch, pushing his weight backwards against him. Alex takes the pace from him. At some point, Michael whimpers and Alex almost stops. But the next he gasps and pushes harder, “let go,” Alex says when it’s getting hard to focus.

“No,” Michael says, “I can’t.”

Alex kisses his shoulder blades and Michael tightens around him, chasing his release and equally fearful of it. Like if he does the world will come rushing back. Alex grips his length and kisses behind his ear.

“Let go,” he repeats, “I’m here.”

Michael pushes back again and goes taut. Alex buries his face in Michaels shoulderblades and follows. Buried against and in Michael’s sun kissed skin, Alex can feel the heat radiating off him. And the sobs he’s fighting so hard not to give into. He slips out of him and pulls him back, wrapping his arms around him. His fingers slide through all of Michael’s, locking their hands together. Michael shakes his head. Alex grips his new hand and guides it down and around himself. Michael chokes on the air and Alex tightens his grip, setting Michael’s pace. He guides Michael through it and keeps it up even after MIchael has spent himself with a choked sound that’s somewhere between Alex’s name and a sob. They’re both on the edge of the bed and it’s messy and wonderful and Alex has no idea how he’s getting any of this off his leg. But that doesn’t matter because Michael is hazy eyed and pliant against him, not the same desperate mess he was before. Alex nuzzles between Michael’s shoulders.

“I have to take this off,” he says, regretfully pulling his hand away. He manages to get the prosthetic off one handed and the sleeve follows. Then he wraps Michael in his arms again, “what do you need?” He asks, half expecting Michael not to answer.

“Just be here,” Michael says.

Alex nods against him to show he’s heard. Michael shudders. He shifts and pulls Alex’s hand close to his.  The outside world will come in soon enough. For now though, this little piece of it can be separate. For as long as Alex can manage to make it so.


	11. Alex goes with Michael to find Isobel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: if you're still doing prompts, alex goes with Michael cause he wants to help after their trailer scene in the finale!

Alex isn’t sure what he intends to do when he steps towards Michael after explaining everything. Or what he’s expecting Michael to do. But whatever it is he’s expecting, that’s not what happens.

Michael doubles over, screaming through his teeth.

Alex still can’t say he’s got a handle on everything the aliens can do, but he knows enough to recognize something bad is happening. Michael grips the table white knuckled and struggles against whatever is happening. His lips part in surprise and horror as he gasps for air and before he can stop himself, Alex grasps his elbows. Michael latches on, fisting his hands in his jacket as he takes in deep breaths of air.

“I have to go. I have to go!” He says, “I have to go!” He releases Alex and scrambles for his jacket.

“Okay,” Alex says.

“Come back tomorrow. We can talk then,” he says and Alex scrambles after him.

“I’m coming with you,” he says.

“No!” Michael throws over his shoulder, but he doesn’t slow his pace. Alex jogs after him and gets to the car before he does, slamming his hand on the door before Michael can open it, “Alex I don’t have time—“

“If someone is out there attacking people you need all the help you can get.”

“He’s killed people!” Michael bellows at him.

“So have I!” Alex shouts right back, “I’m coming with you Guerin, this is just a question of whether I ride with you or follow.”

Michael grinds his teeth together as they stare at each other for a moment. Alex can see the line they’re crossing and how much Michael does not want to cross it. But all Alex can see is him going into the fight and whatever happened in the trailer repeating. He also sees the blood on Michael’s neck, which he is definitely not convinced belongs to someone else with a killer on the lose.

“It’s Noah,” He says. It takes Alex a moment to place him as Isobel’s husband, “I’m driving.”

“He knows your car,” Alex says.

“I’m driving,” Michael tells him.

He grabs something from the back of his truck and they go over to Alex’s black car. He tosses Michael his keys and they get in. He swallows when all the mirrors adjust automatically but ignores any misgivings as Michael turns the car on and pulls out onto the road. Alex finally speaks into the suffocating quiet that has engulfed the car, fueled by Michael’s nervous energy.

“What happened back there?” Alex asks, ‘with your—“ he motions to his head.

“Max, Isobel and I can sense each other, when the other is in danger,” he says, “Isobel’s in trouble.”

Alex nods. He’s got no basis for any of this but he compartmentalizes it like any good solider. He filters the information he can and the rest he shoves to another part of his mind. All things go back to the same basic question of how can he use it to accomplish the objective. How can he use what he knows to stop a serial killer and get them all safely home. It’s unexpected when Michael slams his hand against the wheel.

“I liked Noah. I thought of him as family.And he’s a fucking alien the whole time,” he says.

“Did he know?” Alex asks.

Michael shakes his head. Alex doesn’t know where he comes off with any of this. Irrationally he feels the well of anger, anger he’s been shoving down the entire time, start to bubble. Alex isn’t afraid of ugly truths. He hates not having all the information. He always thought that he was the one with the secrets in their relationship. Alex does his best to tap into the anger as the car speeds towards wherever they’re going. Michael stops the car and shuts it off, Alex gets the distinct impression it isn’t his car that makes the locks all flip.

“This is my family,” Michael says turning to him, suddenly brighter and angrier than Alex has seen in a long time, “we don’t involve people in this,” Alex bristles for the fight to come, “I don’t care what you see, what they do, Max and Iz are the only ones that matter, got it?”

Alex gives a curt nod and nothing happens.

“Yes,” He says, “Jesus, Guerin, my dad locked your mom up and my brother tried to kill both of us, you think they’re going to do something worse?”

Michael glares and the doors unlock.

It is utter and total chaos.

He comes to with stars in his eyes and blood on his cheek to see Michael and Isobel slumped against rocks and Max pulling down actual lightening from the sky. He’s in a god damn marvel movie, is the only thought in his head. Fortunately if he had to pick someone to be, Bucky Barnes is not the worst. Especially with Noah having his back turned, shouting that Max is the savior of a race and implying that Jesus was an alien. Alex takes aim and shoots to kill, putting several very fatal shots in Noah who says something about a ‘her’ and whose dead before he hits the ground. Max stares at him with lightening in his hands as Alex double checks Noah is dead and puts an extra shot in him to be certain. He doesn’t holster his weapon as Max keeps looking at him.

“Did you hear what he said?” He asks.

“Yes,” Alex says, “is he—“ Max nods.

They go back to the cave as Michael and Isobel get up, looking around. They both look alright, physically at least, but Michael’s eyes widen and he hurried over to him. Alex knows he’s bleeding from his forehead. But after everything he isn’t expecting Michael to immediately grab his chin. He jerks because while he’s good at shooting, being touched in this mode is less simple. Michael isn’t a solider though. His face falls momentarily before he takes both of Alex’s cheeks in his hands, turning his face.

“I’m fine,” Alex says.

“The hell you are,” Michael looks over, “Max.”

“I can’t walk around with a glowing handprint on my face,” Alex say.

“I can hide it in your hair,” Max offers.

“I’m okay,” he says, “we have to find whoever he was talking about.”

Michael is suddenly in his face, so close it’s a miracle Alex doesn’t get blood on him. Any thought that he’s an outside here vanishes when he sees that annoyed look Michael only seems to get when he’s doing something he particularly doesn’t like and can’t seem to do the mental gymnastics to say he deserves.  

“Stop being stubborn,” Michael says.

“Guerin I’m fine, head wounds bleed, it’s nothing.”

“That’s an oxymoron,” Michael snaps, “we got more to do and you could have a concussion. Just let him heal you.”

“Michael,” Max starts.

“Stay out of it,” Michael snaps and looks back at him.

Alex exhales sharply. Someone is out there and he knows they have to find him. He’s also aware that Michael has been pushed well past his limits and his actions are responsible. But the idea of having anyone in his head isn’t one he’s incredibly fond of. Especially not for anything as minor as a flesh wound.

“I said I’m fine,” he says, “we have someone to find.”

“Why not?”

“Why not what?”

“Why won’t you let him fix your head?” Michael picks this moment to go stubborn and fold his arms, glaring at him.

“The same reason you won’t let him fix your hand.”

The Evans twins gasp audibly and if Alex wasn’t so dead set on things being different, he would be embarrassed that they have an audience. Michael scowls at him and even though they have an audience and things to do, Alex can spare a thought for how much he’s missed that look on his face. Wanting to know Michael doesn’t mean just the big things that seem to have come one after the other. But Michael’s hand is long healed and Alex knows the headwound looks worse than it is.

“This is shallow,” he says pointing at his forehead.

“You’re still hurt.”

“I lost a leg, Guerin, this is nothing.”

Michael’s jaw drops and Alex realizes that this is the first time he’s referenced his leg without meaning to. It just slips out. Right on the heels of Michael’s hand. All his therapy has told him that one day he’ll be able to mention it without the world shifting and the most he can say it does is wobble a little. Not that that is going to stop him. He tears his gaze from Michael’s to look at the twins who immediately turn and look at other things like they aren’t all standing together in a cave with a dead body a few feet away.

“We need to find whoever Noah was talking about,” he looks at Noah, “and do something with the body,” he looks between them, “who can do what?”

“We will find whoever Noah was talking about,” isobel says, grabbing Michael, “you and Max handle the body.”

He and Max look at each other.

“Put him in his car,” he says, “we’ll stage a accident.”

They get Noah in and Max sparks something in the car that sets it ablaze. They stand there watching the body burn. There is a sick corner of himself that he knows shares his family’s ruthlessness. Their stubbornness and their dedication to finishing a job no matter the consequences. But as he stands there with Max, he realizes this depraved corner might not exclusively be a Manes family flaw. The odd thing is standing with someone as it happens, even if he doesn’t know Max all that well.

“Michael has his own reasons for not letting me fix his hand,” Max says. Alex looks at him but Max is as closed as always, “maybe you can help him.”

He gets the sense Max isn’t going to be more transparent than that. He’s learning more and more that everything on the surface is an act for the three of them, a denial of what they actually are. He’s always know that about Michael, but now he sees it more with the others. And just like that determination, he recognizes himself in it. He goes over to his car instead of answering and wipes the strip of blood from his face, disinfecting his cut and applying a butterfly bandage to close it. He grabs more ammo and turns around to see Max a lot closer than he was.

“They found her,” he says, “follow me.”

Alex takes a deep breath and when Max starts his car up, he puts his in gear and follows him into the darkness.


	12. In Patient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: Based on what happened in the finale I want to read some angst. Alex disappearing for a while, dealing with depression. Michael is with Maria when he finds out about it.

“As you can see, this is our yoga room and our library—“

Michael tries to pay attention to the woman dressed in some hybrid of scrubs and yoga clothes, but it’s kind of hard. He isn’t here for himself, he is here because much to the chagrin of Ann Evans, Isobel has made him her medical proxy and power of attorney and everything else. Isobel has decided she needs to go to a treatment center and Michael is fucking proud of her for the decision. He volunteers to go on the tour. The intensive program is designed to help and he hopes it works.

“Now i can show you our women’s dormitory,” she says, “if your friend—“

“My brother can stay here,” isobel says, “library?”

“Why not?” Michael says and goes with minimal complaining.

The library is nice, he has to admit. If he was in this place he would probably spend all his time here. It’s a bright and airy ground floor room, complete with a librarian who makes sure everyone has authorization to be here. Michael doesn’t know how books can be used to hurt yourself but he can see they aren’t big on sharp edges in this place. He wanders through several of the big shelves, looking at the spines of the books. He’s always liked the library, it’s one of the few places in Roswell he hasn’t been kicked out of. He’s taking down a book on old mechanical clocks when he sees a flash of coal black hair. It makes him pause like every person with hair that dark does. And before he can come up with anything he looks.

Shit, it is Alex.

His heart leaps into his throat because Alex is there dressed like all the patients. He has glasses on and is trying to read but clearly not enjoying the book. He doesn’t look well by any stretch of the imagination, but he still manages to look better than anyone else here. Michael watches as he flips through another page in the book before giving up and falling backwards on the window seat, dropping the book onto his face as he does. He swears into the pages. Michael approaches and Alex lifts the book up before letting it drop and muttering another swear.

“I mean I respond to all varieties of that word, but technically it’s Guerin.”

“What are you doing here?” He asks, not moving the book. So Michael takes it off his face. Alex blows out a disgruntled breath and pushes himself up.

“I’m taking Isobel on a tour,” he says. Alex nods, “what are you doing here?” Alex gives him a truly withering look, “right, dumb question.”

The awkwardness of the situation rocks him. He’s very used to things being awkward on his end, but Alex isn’t there to be the rock like he usually is. He’s been trying to let go of it, but now he actually feels like he’s drowning. Alex refuses to meet his eyes except when he has to and that is also crippling. Alex can be a thousand things towards him, hell he’s even used to his self loathing by now, but this feels different. He doesn’t fucking like it. And the guilt he feels doesn’t help matters. Michael knows he’s a disaster but he tries not to put that on anyone else. He still replays Max telling him that he pushed his parents away. Michael would never ask that of him. He knows every time he’s used his powers, even on people like that dick Wyatt who deserve a hell of a lot worse. Michael keeps people away for a reason, and that reason winding up here anyway feels awful.

“How long are you—“

“Can we not talk about this?” Alex snaps, wrestling as much control of the situation and for one moment Michael feels like he’s back on solid ground, “I’m so fucking tired of talking,” and the ground goes away.

“Okay,” He says. He offers the book back instead. He’s still got his thumb where it was open to when Alex put it on his face and Michael looks at the numbers charted on the page. Alex takes the book back and Michael goes back to his book that’s half off the shelf and comes back. Alex hangs his head but almost makes that scoff Michael recognize, “can I sit here?”

“What did I just—“

“No talking,” he says, holding up his book, “just sitting in companionable silence until Isobel comes back.”

Alex huffs but scoots over.

Michael sits.

He glances at Alex out of the corner of his eye as Alex stares at the page. He can see him trying to focus. Alex is smart, dangerously smart and more determined than anyone outside of Max. But Alex has his pride. He’s already embarrassed at being caught here and now he’s clearly stuck on something the book is illustrating. Michael wants to help but he knows Alex will strike him down. The next time Alex looks at him, Michael catches his gaze. Alex looks away, color on his cheeks and then looks down at the pages before closing his book and getting up.

“Hey where are you—“

“I can’t sit here and pretend everything is okay,” Alex says, looking at him, “I came here to get better.”

“And I make you worse?” Michael challenges.

“This isn’t about you,” Alex snaps. Michael glares, “it’s not all about you,” Alex corrects.

“What’s it about then?” He questions. Alex looks away, “come on, if it’s not about me and dating Maria—“ Alex winces, “whats it about?”

“I said I don’t want to talk—“ Michael stares him down, “i don’t want to talk,” he says firmly.

“Well there’s a surprise,” he says.

Alex stiffens. Michael gets the sense he’s dancing by a line that he’s not supposed to cross. But that’s never exactly stopped him before. He spreads out in the seat, occupying as much space as he can while Alex stares him down. For a while Alex has been careful and scared, but Michael’s seen glimmers of an Alex he hasn’t seen a while. A defiant little shit who can’t back away from a challenge no matter how much in his interest it may be.

“I’ve gone through two deployments,” Alex says finally, “my biggest issue with you stems from before that.”

“You mean when your dad brought a hammer onto my hand,” Michael says, flashing him the fixed appendage, “all better now.”

“I mean when I couldn’t protect you from him,” Alex says.

Michael stares at him, truly surprised.

“We were kids,” he says.

“I—“

“He abused you your whole life,” he continues before Alex says anything, “you don’t think I blame you for that, do you?”

“No,” Alex says finally, “but I blame myself,” he gives a tight smile that chills Michael, “I need help so I’m here to get it,” he says.

“I don’t blame you for it,” Michael says, “okay? I don’t. I wanted to protect you—“ it’s not the first time Alex has stepped away from him, it just hurts as badly as all the others. Worse, maybe, because some stupid part of Michael believed he’d stopped, “damn it.”

“I’ll see you around,” Alex says.

He walks as fast as he can away, pausing only long enough to check out the book he’s reading. Michael knocks his head against the wall, cursing his own stupidity. Of course Alex would get help and be better and he would still walk away from him. Michael doesn’t know why he thought any different. He fights the lump of emotion that knots his throat. An arm comes around his shoulders and he turns to Isobel. He smiles tightly at her, beyond her he sees Ann Evans talking to the woman leading the tour.

“Hey,” Isobel steers him back, “would it be possible for someone to give my brother a tour of the men’s dormitory?” She asks.

“Iz—“ He begins and she shushes him.

“We can figure it out,” she says, “I can’t think of a better use for Noah’s life insurance money,” she adds, “he always said places like this were for loonies.”

Michael rolls his eyes.

“How did we not know?” He asks

“I can’t make sense of it either,” she says, “but just look? Please? I want to get rid of that money as fast as possible.”

Michael looks at the two women standing there. He knows why Ann Evans didn’t take him. He knows he needs help, or he’s starting to think he does and his own inability to afford it has always been an issue. But if this helps Isobel, well, maybe he can do the mental gymnastics for accepting it. At the very least he can take a small step forward.

“Sure,” He says, “give me the tour.”


	13. Alex Faints

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Prompt: Could u write a prompt taking place after season 1? Like after all that’s happened with caufield and the explosion and everything Alex gets PTSD and can’t sleep without getting nightmares. He asks Kyle if he could prescribe him sleeping pills and Michael overhears and starts freaking out leading to a reconciliation between them!

“You know I can’t do that—don’t make that face at me. You know I can’t. You need to see your therapist.”

“What am I supposed to tell her? I blew up a secret prison?”

“Alex—“

“Forget it!” 

Michael can’t say what posses him to all but fly around the corridor so he collides with Alex. It’a about as elegant as he expects it to go. Alex doesn’t jump back but he does stop short of touching him. Alex looks god awful. Michael knows that some vicious part of him is supposed to be glad, since if Alex looks bad then all the bad memories he’s tied up with are being punished. 

But Michael knows that Alex being bad only works under a specific set of circumstances. Namely that he cannot see him. If he sees Alex, it’s a lot harder to say that he’s tied up with bad things, that looking at him hurts. If he sees Alex, then all Michael really does is ache to hold him. Something he’s been trying to avoid for as long as possible.

“Alex?”

He doesn’t recognize his own voice as he looks at him. Alex looks like he hasn’t slept in a while, the usual stubble he has is definitely more on the side of a full beard. He looks bad. Bad enough that it’s a cold bucket of water over him. He likes the shield of what happened in Caulfield only happening to him, it lets him justify a lot of shit, but looking at Alex is a cold reminder that it didn’t just happen to him. Alex blinks and shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it.

“Excuse me,” He says and Michael tries to get in front of him, “get out of the way.”

“No,” he says.

“Guerin—“

“No!”

Alex glares and decides to try and get past him the old fashioned way. He’s not proud of the fact that he sometimes forgets how fucking fast Alex can be. To be fair that’s a pre-leg thing, sometimes it’s easy to forget that not looking like he’s into sports doesn’t mean Alex isn’t really good at running, dodging and counterstriking. Of course Michael is really great at staying up for days on end and so he instinctively knows what’s gonna happen. 

Alex moves and he does get past him, but he also full on faints. 

“Fuck, Alex!” Michael barely manages to catch him with his hands and not his powers, immediately hauling him to the wall and trying to hold him up. Alex’s dignity matters to him, Michael knows that. It can’t be another thing that he takes from him. Trying to look inconspicuous he taps his face, “Alex,” he hisses. 

Thankfully Alex’s eyes open. They immediately focus on him. Michael doesn’t know how Alex manages to push away from him and stay braced against the wall, but he does manage to make space between them. He seems to know that Michael isn’t going to just let him go so he doesn’t run, but he gives him a look that makes it clear he’s not happy about it.

“Don’t they teach you to hydrate on your all nighters in the Air Force?” Michael demands. 

Alex scowls. 

Michael finds himself torn and in a place he really hates being in, despite it coming up over and over with the people he cares about. He’s mad at Alex. He’s furious at him for so many reasons and that sharp lick of pain is back. The one he wants to go away before it becomes a part of every interaction he has with Alex. He’s feared this before, when his hand was newly twisted. But Alex was gone, by the time he came back the sharp pain was an ache Michael could live with. Now it’s back in all its glory and he wants to tell Alex to fuck off but he can’t. He doesn’t want to look at Alex and feel pain, but pain is the only thing Alex seems to be feeling right now. 

“I don’t have anyone to talk about it with either,” he blurts out.

Alex’s scowl turns completely venomous.

“Back off Guerin,” He says.

“Is talking to me worse than fainting?” Michael asks. They both know the answer to that, “Just about that,” he adds firmly, “we got nothing to lose.”

Logically he knows that’s a load of bullshit. And the chances of them actually staying on topic are probably slim to none. But maybe they’ll get lucky. Maybe they’ll make progress, be good for each other again. His optimism lasts as long as it takes him to get to the parking lot where Alex stops before his truck, takes one look and shakes his head.

“We can’t do this.”

“Jesus, Alex, why not?” He demands, forgetting he was trying to help.

“We’re too mad at each other,” Alex says and Michael hates that he’s right. That line between his eyebrows gets more pronounced, “this isn’t going to help.”

“You’re a miserable liar,” Michael shoots back at him. 

“I’m not, actually,” Alex says smoothly and fuck him for being right, talented and not rising to the bait, “do you want to look at me and feel pain for the rest of your life?”

“Of course not, but you’re hurting—“

“That isn’t your problem—“

“Of course it’s my problem, Alex!” He shouts, cutting off Alex’s explanation, “why the hell do you think I tried to keep you out of this?!” He knows that Alex hates people trying to protect him, trying to say that he needs protecting. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and I’m trying to protect you makes up most of them, “I didn’t want you to be hurt.”

Alex’s expression only changes in that the lines on his face smooth out and he becomes almost impassive because Alex has a fucking poker face. Michael wants of pull his hair out and scream because this is not fair. Alex always makes him feel this way, exposed and vulnerable and like he has the protection. Michael hates that feeling.

“They’re your family,” Alex starts.

“Yours too!” That surprises him and under other circumstances Michael would cheer but now he just grabs the crack, “you said we were family so they’re your family too.”

“Guerin—“

“No!” He cuts him off, suddenly desperate to speak with Alex’s armor cracked, “you can be hurt by it. You watched your family die it’s fucked up,” Alex looks away, “I can’t sleep either. Again.”

It takes Alex a moment to catch on and Michael realizes he’s blown this Pandora’s box wide open. But fuck it. He’ll go through claiming some kind of relation to Jesse Manes if it gets Alex to see they are in this together. They’re both guilty by association and distance being the only thing to lessen the pain can’t be true. He won’t let it be true. He looks at Alex who fight not to bite his bottom lip, instead looking at the truck and then at him.

“I don’t want to get into your car,” he says. 

“Fine,” Michael says. 

“I’ll meet you—“

“We’ll take your car if you give me a ride back,” he offers.

The compromise hangs between them before Alex finally nods his head. 

It’s a start. 


End file.
